In order to have better understanding of the kind of impact that specific group have on consumers, we will examine six basic consumer relevant groups namely: the family, friendship groups, formal social groups, shopping groups, consumer action groups, and work groups.
1. The family: an individual's family influences his behaviour as a consumer. In this case, the family's importance is based upon the frequency of contact that the individual has with other family members and the extent of influence that the family has on the establishment of a wide range of values, attitudes and behaviour.
2. Friendship Groups: friendship groups are classified as informal groups since they are constructed and lack specific authority levels. In terms of relative influence after an individual's family, we can say that it is friends who are more likely to influence the individual switches decisions. This is because the views and opinions or friends can be an important force in influencing the products or brands in consumer finally designs to buy consumers are more likely to seek information from those friends that they feel have values or outlooks similar to their own the greater the similarity, the more the individual is likely to trust his friends and be influenced by their judgement and arriving at a purchase decision.
3. Formal Social Groups: formal social groups influence the behaviour of consumers . The person joints a formal social group to fulfill such specific goals as making new friends meeting important people, pursuing special interest, promoting a specific course. By interacting with other members of a formal social group, the consumption behaviour of an individual is influenced. again a formal social group often consumes certain products together and so such groups are of interest to marketers. For example, members of women's dance group in a town would require special outfit or costume for their performance. Therefore the group's member list would be of interest to a local clothing store.
4. Shopping Groups: Many women in nigeria shop together, especially in the open market like ogbete main market in enugu. Two or more people who shop together, weather for food, for clothing, or simply to pass the time, constitute a shopping group. Such groups are often offshoots of family or friends groups.
Why do people like to shop together? Many reasons are giving for this. For instance, they like to shop with others who are pleasant company, or who they feel have more experience with or knowledge about a desired product or service. shopping with others also provides the opportunity for social fun in an often boring but necessary task. in addition, it reduces the risk that a purchase decision will be socially unacceptable. In situations where one of the members have knowledge about the product being in situations where none of the members have knowledge about the product being sought, a shopping group may form for defensive purposes. In this case, members may feel more confident with a collective decision.
5. Consumer Action Groups: consumer action consumer action groups are formed to seek redress or fight against bad or unearthing practice of marketers or business men such groups can be divided into two broad categories: those that organise to correct a specific abuse and then this band and those that organise to address border more pervasive problem areas and operate over an extended or indefinite period of time. A group of tenants who come together to fight against the high rent charged by landlords in nigeria is an example of a temporary cause specific customer action group.
The overriding objective of many consumer interest groups is to bring sufficient pressure to bear on selected members of the government or business community to make them correct certain customers abuses. An example of such abuses is the excessively high rents charged by landlords in nigeria and the manner in which they impose it on tenants.
6. Work Groups: Every person who has a job or work in a group is likely to be influenced by others. The sheer amount of time that people spend at their jobs provides example opportunity for work groups to serve as a major influence on the consumption behaviour of members.
There are two dimensions of the work groups the former workgroup and informal friendship workgroup. But the formal work group and the informal friendship work group have the potential for influencing consumer behaviour. The former work group consist of those individuals who work together as a team. They are direct and sustained work relationship offers substantial opportunity for one or more members to influence the consumer related attitudes and activities of other team members. On the other hand, informal friendship work groups consist of people who have become friends as a result of working together.
